Before I Fall

so if you ever sailed into it, you’d just be stuck there at the lip forever, forever being torn apart, forever dying. That’s what it feels like in that second. The crush of people circled around me, an endless lip, more and more people.

And there she is standing in the doorway. Juliet Sykes. Juliet Sykes—who yesterday blew her brains out with her parents’ handgun.

Her hair is tied up in a ponytail and I can’t help it; I picture it knotted and clotted with blood, a big gaping hole directly underneath her little flip of hair. I’m terrified of her: a ghost in the door, the kind of stuff you have nightmares about when you’re a kid, the kind of thing they make horror movies about.

A phrase comes back from a news show I had to watch about the convicts on death row for my ethics and issues elective: dead man walking. I thought it was awful when I first heard it, but now I really understand it. Juliet Sykes is a dead man walking. I guess I am too, in a way.

“No,” I say, without meaning to say it out loud. I take a step backward, and Harlowe Rosen squeals and says, “That’s my foot.”

“I don’t believe it,” Ally says again, but it sounds far away. She’s already turning away from me, calling out to Lindsay over the music. “Lindsay, did you see who it is?”

Juliet sways in the doorway. She looks calm, but her hands are balled into fists.

I throw myself forward, but everyone chooses that moment to press even closer around me. I can’t watch it again. I don’t want to see what happens next. I’m not very steady on my feet, and I keep getting knocked back and forth, rocketing between people like a pinball, trying desperately to get out of the room. I know I’m stepping on people and throwing elbows in their backs, but I don’t care. I need out.

Finally I break through the knot of people. Juliet is blocking the doorway. She’s not even looking at me. She’s standing as still as a statue, her eyes locked some distance over my shoulder. She’s looking at Lindsay. I understand then that it’s Lindsay she really wants—it’s Lindsay she hates the most—but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

Just as I’m about to push past her, a tremor runs through her body and she locks eyes with me.

“Wait,” she says to me, and puts a hand on my wrist. It’s as cold as ice.

“No.” I pull away from her and keep going, stumbling forward, nearly choking on my fear. Jumbled images of Juliet keep flashing in my mind: Juliet doubled over, hands outstretched, drenched in beer and stumbling; Juliet lying on a cold floor in a pool of blood. I’m not thinking clearly, and in my head the two images merge and I see her roving around the room while everyone laughs, her hair soaked, dripping, drenched in blood.

I’m so distracted I don’t see Rob in the hallway until I’ve run straight into him.

“Hey.” Rob is drunk now. He has an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “Hey, you.”

“Rob…” I press myself against him. The world is spinning. “Let’s get out of here, okay? We’ll go to your house. I’m ready now, just me and you.”

“Whoa, cowgirl.” One half of Rob’s mouth ticks slowly upward, but the other doesn’t quite manage to join it. “After the cigarette.” He starts moving toward the back of the house. “Then we’ll go.”

“No!” I nearly scream it.

He turns back to me, swaying, and before he can react, I’ve already plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and I’m kissing him, my hands cupped on either side of his face, shoving my body into his. It takes him a second to realize what’s happening, but then he starts pawing me over my dress, rolling his tongue around in circles, groaning a little bit.

We’re both staggering back and forth in the hallway, almost like we’re dancing. I feel the floor buckle and roll, and Rob accidentally pushes me hard against the wall and I gasp.

“Sorry, babe.” His eyes cross, uncross.

“We need a room.” From the back of the house I can just hear the chanting starting. Psycho, Psycho. “We need a room now.”

I take Rob’s hand and we stumble down the hall, forcing our way against the tide of people moving in the other direction. They’re all going to see what the noise is about.

“In here.” Rob slams as hard as he can against the first closed door he comes to, the one with all the bumper stickers. There’s a popping sound and we both tumble inside. I kiss him again and try to lose myself in the feeling of the closeness of our bodies and his warmth, try to block out the rising howls of laughter from the back room. I pretend I’m just a body with a mind as blank and fuzzy as a TV full of snow. I try to shrink myself down, center myself in my skin, like the only feeling that exists is in Rob’s fingers.

Once the door is shut it’s pitch-black. The darkness around us hasn’t let up at all—either there are no windows here or they’re curtained off. It’s so dark it’s almost heavy-looking, and I get a sudden hysterical fear that we’re stuck in a box. Rob’s lurching on his feet so much by this point, his arms locked around me, it makes me dizzy. I feel a wave of nausea, and I push him backward until we encounter something soft: a bed. He tips over and I climb on top of him.

“Wait,” he mumbles.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I whisper. Even now I can hear the sounds of laughter and the screaming— Psycho, Psycho—piping thinly over the music. I kiss Rob harder and he wrestles with the zipper of my dress. I hear fabric ripping but I don’t care. I slide the dress down to my waist, and Rob starts his attack on my bra.

“Are you shure about this?” Rob slurs in my ear.

“Just kiss me.” Psycho, Psycho. The voices are echoing down the hall. I slide my hands under Rob’s fleece and wrestle it over his head, then start kissing his neck and underneath the collar of his polo shirt. His skin tastes like sweat and salt and cigarettes, but I keep kissing while his hands move over my back and down toward my butt. An image of Mr. Daimler on top of me—and the speckled ceiling—rises out of the darkness, but I push it away.

I take Rob’s shirt off so now we’re pressed chest-to-chest. Our skin keeps making these weird, slurpy, suctiony sounds as our stomachs come together and then pop apart. At a certain point his hands fall away. I’m still kissing him, moving down his chest, feeling the fuzz of hair scattered there. Chest hair has always grossed me out; it’s another thing I don’t think about tonight.

Rob’s gotten quiet. He’s probably shocked. I’ve never even done this much with him before. Normally when we hook up he’s the one who takes charge. I’ve always been afraid I’ll do something wrong. It feels so awkward to act like you know what you’re doing. I’ve never even been totally naked with him.

“Rob?” I whisper, and he moans quietly. My arms are shaking from holding my weight up for so long so I stand up. “Do you want me to take my dress off?”

Silence. My heart is beating fast, and even though the room is cold, sweat is tickling my underarms. “Rob?” I repeat.

All of a sudden he lets out an enormous, honking snore and rolls over. The snores continue, long waves of them.

For a while I just stand there and listen to it. When Rob snores it’s always reminded me of when I was little and used to sit on the front porch and watch my dad make narrow circles on the back of his six-year-old Sears ride-on mower, which growled so badly I had to cover my ears. I never went inside, though. I loved to watch the neat little compact tracks of green my dad left in his wake, hundreds of tiny blades of grass spinning through the air like ballerinas.

It’s so dark in the room it takes me forever to find my bra and stupid fur thing; I have to grope on my hands and knees for them. I’m not upset. I’m not feeling much of anything, not really thinking, just ticking off things I have to do. Find the bra. Hitch up the dress. Get out the door.

I slip into the hallway. The music’s pumping at a normal volume, and people are flowing in and out of the back room. Juliet Sykes is gone.

A couple of people give me weird looks. I’m sure I’m a mess but don’t have the energy to care. It’s amazing how well I’m holding it together, actually, and even though my brain is foggy I think that very clearly: It’s amazing how well you’re holding it together. I think, Lindsay would be proud.

“Your dress isn’t zipped.” Carly Jablonski giggles at me.

Behind her someone says, “What were you doing in there?”